A busy day, almost two days worth in one, as I started at 6am and have worked until 8pm (so far).
In the afternoon I started recording the Salomé tracks. It was hard to get them right and I played best low down, but crouching to play the keyboard was very difficult. The sustain pedal was to the right and distant, so most of my weight was on my left leg, bent at the knee, and sustaining that post for 30 minutes to perform will probably be too difficult, so I've decided to perform sitting and have ordered a new piano seat. Standing looks better from a performance perspective - oh to actually be in front! I love audience interaction and performing... but standing is impractical and will certainly harm the quality of the playing.
After that, at 4pm, I decided to paint the masks. The Nietzsche mask needed an acrylic gesso layer, the other two were painted late last night. Then I painted the masks in oil paint, remembering my frustration with sticky and messy acrylics when painting the Ragdoll Robot mask. What a joy it was to use oils! I will never paint a sculpture with acrylics again. I will reserve them for frames and functional things like that.
I listened to Queen's A Day at the Races as I painted. What a poor album compared to A Night at the Opera! I noticed, for the first time, how downbeat and sad many of the tracks were, perhaps a new insight after watching the Bohemian Rhapsody film. Freddie's were about loneliness and lovelessness. When listening to The Millionaire Waltz I was really reminded about the scene in the film where Freddie sends a lamp-light message to Mary Austin. Drowse, one of the most dismal Roger Taylor tracks he ever wrote with Queen, now reminded me of Bowie - and reminded me that some of Bowie's tracks were also dismally tuneless, but, yes, creative.
Rehearsal day tomorrow, and my next job is recording the music.
